Marie stood in the lobby’s center, in front of a brand-new decoration: a fifteen-foot-high Nutcracker statue of resin and fiberglass, his face a glossy rictus.
Gazing upward, Marie couldn’t take her eyes off it, not even noticing as all the students began tumbling in, tearing off wool hats, chattering softly, reverently, smoothing their hair back into their tight buns.
“Are you ready?” Dara asked, stirring Marie from her reverie.
Her sister turned and looked at her and smiled.
* * *
*
In seconds, the lobby was filled with students, the youngest ones nearly squealing as they moved through the carpeted space.
It was the first time at least a quarter of them had ever been behind the scenes at the Ballenger, a theater they’d all sat in, enthralled, their whole lives, tucked since ages three or four in the red plush seats, their candy-and saliva-coated palms pressed on the wooden armrests, their eyes unblinking, struck.
“I’m so nervous I could die. I could throw up and die.”
“Shut up. You’re making it worse.”
“What if Oliver drops me? Did you see his arm—”
“You-know-who makes me sick. Her toes curl under like claws.”
* * *
*
For the next four hours, as Dara stalked the stage, the theater aisles, it was a ceaseless assault: pitched laughter, stifled screams, and the teary strains of forgotten slippers, the tragedy of monthly bloat, a blackened toenail hanging by a strip of withered skin, and their Clara, Bailey Bloom, missing for a perilous half hour. Finally, Madame Sylvie found her locked in a lightless custodial supply closet, hysterical with fear.
“She said someone blindfolded her and locked her inside,” Madame Sylvie told Dara. “Some shadowy ‘they.’”
But Dara knew just who the “they” was, looking across the stage at all the unchosen Claras—Pepper Weston, Gracie Hent, Iris Cartwright—waiting to rehearse the Waltz of the Snowflakes, their faces aloof, watchful.
“The little darlings,” Dara said, sounding more like their mother than ever before. “I suppose they hoped we wouldn’t find her until after opening night.”
* * *
*
Did you see it?”
“Shhhh . . .”
“Let me look.”
Midway through the Waltz of the Snowflakes run-through, the energy corkscrewed, a scattering of students hovering over their phones in the dark wings.
It was a news article. The Durants hadn’t received a newspaper in twenty years, since the Tribune strike began and their father, a union man, called to cancel his subscription, harrumphing that he was no scab.
Dara got a copy from a stagehand perusing the sports page while, onstage, two dozen Snowflakes flitted and leapt.
contractor killed at area ballet school, the headline noted grimly, the photo of the studio just as grim, the weather-beaten sign, its brick streaked with salt.
“Higher!” she could hear Madame Sylvie calling out. “In a week, you’ll be doing those assemblés in fifty pounds of snow!”
Behind the curtain, she read the article once, then twice.
Authorities are investigating the death of an area contractor whom police said died early Sunday after apparently falling down a staircase.
Police were called to the scene after the owners of the Durant School of Dance reported discovering Derek Girard, 49, of Roseville, at the foot of the staircase and unresponsive. Police arrived to find the man lying on his back, with visible injuries and his head surrounded by blood. He was reported dead on the scene, according to police reports.
A preliminary autopsy revealed that the cause of death was a complex skull fracture due to blunt force head trauma from the elevated fall, internal bleeding, and major intracranial bleeding due to eye perforation, according to the county coroner.
A final determination of the manner of death is pending toxicology and histology results. The police investigation is ongoing.
There really wasn’t any new information in the article, she decided. Everything was falling in line as it should. It would all be over soon.
Except: those words. Autopsy. Pending. Manner of death. Ongoing.
* * *
*
I thought autopsies were only for murder,” Liv Lockman was whispering.
The acoustics of the Ballenger were unforgiving and Dara could hear all of it, each little rosette of Snowflakes assembled, waiting, chattering, eager to hurl their minds to something other than their rigid and anxious bodies.
“It’s any unnatural death,” announced Gracie Hent, from some mysterious well of knowledge. “They do autopsies for any unnatural death.”
“What’s unnatural about it?” Liv Lockman said, her voice even lower, her eyes shining with excitement.
“Because it wasn’t supposed to happen,” Gracie said, looking less sure now. “But it did.”
Unnatural. The word like a cold lash. Once, twice, three times.
* * *
*
Later in the afternoon, when the parents began arriving, it seemed to be everywhere: the dreary gray page-three article, a few column inches but also a photograph of their studio, dark and stark as a crime scene.
“What are we going to do about this?” Dr. Weston said, looking dreary and gray himself as he approached Dara. Dr. Weston, there for rehearsal again. How did a doctor have so much leisure time?
“About what?” Dara said, playing distracted, focusing instead on a group of the Level IVs trying to hide in a lobby alcove, bent over a plastic tub of contraband rainbow cookies. Come try one, Bailey, someone was saying. They’re so good.
“This article. The picture.” He shook his head. “Aren’t you concerned?”
“It has nothing to do with us,” Dara said, feeling her face grow hot, avoiding his heavy gaze, watching as Madame Sylvie scolded the girls for their cookies. Do you think I don’t see, mes anges? I see everything.
“But it does,” Dr. Weston insisted, moving closer toward her.
Jesus, Dara thought. What could he know?
“I don’t see how . . .” she started.
Then, leaning even closer, he lowered his voice, pointing at the paper, “I mean, they haven’t even given us coverage for The Nutcracker yet. What kind of crap is that?”
Dara felt a hard smack of relief. The Nutcracker, what else was there?
“I have to get back,” she said abruptly, backing farther away.
“Well, it’s the world we live in,” he said, his voice echoing through the lobby as Dara turned and began walking away. “Sick, sick.”
* * *
*
Back in the cool dark of the theater, she tried to settle into the work, watching Corbin onstage donning the Nutcracker Prince mask, lurid and startling under the lights. The tufts of white hair on either side. The grin manic, the teeth two perfect lines.
While the lighting engineer made adjustments, bringing up the blue, Dara called Charlie, but there was no answer.
“Just checking in,” she said into the voicemail. “Call me.”
Behind her, she heard a voice, Marie. One row back, leaning close to Dara’s ear.
“Is he coming here?” she asked. “Charlie?”
“No,” Dara said. “But we should talk.”
“Okay,” Marie said.
The stage was flooded violet, Corbin adjusting the mask on his head.
Behind her, Dara could hear Marie breathing. Fast, then more slowly. Slower still.
* * *
*
It doesn’t mean anything,” she told Marie as her sister read the article, her fingers smudging.
They were in a dressing room, backstage. A half-dozen mouse heads perched on stands, the room smelling of glue, rubbing alcohol, cold cream, vomit.
“It’s okay,” Marie said, twisting her thumbnail between her teeth. “I’m okay.”
“They do them for everyone. Autopsies,” Dara said, even as she knew they didn’t.
Marie held out the newspaper, offering it back to Dara, her grip tentative, like it was a carton of eggs, or a box of firecrackers.
“I keep thinking of his face,” she said. “At the end. How surprised he looked.”
“Why are you doing this?” Dara said, letting the newspaper fall to the vanity. “We said we weren’t ever going to talk about this.”